KANDAHAR – A powerful Afghan police chief and a journalist were among atleast three people killed on Thursday when a gunman opened fire on ahigh-level security meeting attended by top US commander General ScottMiller, officials said.
At least 12 people were wounded, including three Americans and a provincialgovernor, in the Taliban-claimed attack that comes two days beforeAfghanistan s long-delayed parliamentary elections. Miller was not hurt.
Security forces swarmed the southern city of Kandahar after the shootingthat shuttered shops and sent terrified civilians — already on high alertfor attacks — into their homes.
The Taliban said Miller and General Abdul Raziq — the police chief ofKandahar province who had a fierce reputation for brutality — were thetargets of the shooting.
“General Raziq and the provincial NDS (intelligence agency) chief have beenkilled, and the governor himself is in a critical condition,” a seniorgovernment official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.
Six of Raziq s bodyguards and two intelligence officers also were woundedin the attack that was carried out by one of the governor s securitypersonnel, the official said. The shooter had been killed, he added.
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An Afghan journalist working for state media also died, media support groupNAI said in a statement. An Afghan security official told AFP the attackhappened as the officials, including Miller, were leaving the meeting.
Miller was not hurt in the shooting, NATO s Resolute Support missionspokesman Colonel Knut Peters said in a statement. Three Americans,including a soldier, civilian and contractor, were wounded in thecross-fire and had been evacuated from the scene. “Initial reports indicatethis was an Afghan-on-Afghan incident,” Peters said. “We are being told thearea is secure.”
A hospital official told AFP that several senior officials had been broughtto the medical facility, but they would not provide further details.Another witness said the city was “full of military forces”. “They don tallow anyone to come out of their houses,” he told AFP.
Raziq, an anti-Taliban strongman, was widely seen as a bulwark against theinsurgency in Kandahar, the militant group s birthplace, and had previouslysurvived multiple assassination attempts. He long controlled the provincewith an iron hand and was accused of running secret torture chambers, anallegation he denied. – APP/AFP
